Early Childhood Development – Family Service of Rhode Island

5 things I’m grateful for this year

Jenna Pfueller — Wed, 28 Dec 2022 20:06:32 +0000

A special message from our CEO, Margaret Holland McDuff

To my dear FSRI supporters and friends,

This year has brought us new joys, adventures, and yes, new challenges. With the backing of supporters like you, FSRI has risen to meet the unique and ever-changing needs of our communities – mental health supports for students and schools, safe and loving homes for kids in foster care, care for infants and toddlers to grow healthy and strong – and so much more.

Here are 5 things I’m grateful for this year:

We helped over 23,000 family members to achieve healing and stability.
Over 2,300 children were served through our early childhood programs.
Rhode Island Government Leaders supported significant investments in the housing and human service sectors.
We were thrilled to promote internal talent into leadership positions, including three to Vice Presidential roles for Hope, Home, and Equity & Community Development.
We were excited to return to in-person events including the APRI Run/Walk and our biggest Brighter Futures Luncheon to date.

None of this would have been possible without the support of our dedicated Board Members. We welcomed seven new board members in 2022, and we are honored to have such a diverse and accomplished group of individuals who are willing to invest their time and efforts into ensuring the success of our many programs and projects here at FSRI.

I feel so grateful, as we move into 2023, for your care and support, which makes everything that we do possible. Thank you for your kindness and your meaningful contribution to FSRI and to our communities.

As we move quickly toward the end of the year, I’m planning on investing in solving the children’s mental health crisis in Rhode Island and I hope that you will join me.

I wish you great joy and good health in 2023 and all of the years ahead.

Happy Holidays,

Margaret Holland McDuff

CEO

Family Service of Rhode Island

Thank you to our Rhode Island Leaders!

Jenna Pfueller — Fri, 15 Jul 2022 15:02:54 +0000

On June 27, 2022, Governor McKee signed a historic state budget, approving significant investment into the state’s health and human service sector, particularly for Rhode Island’s most vulnerable children and families.

We are deeply grateful to Governor McKee, Speaker Shekarchi, Senate President Ruggiero, and House and Senate Leadership for their collective hard work to ensure rate increases and investments for Early Childhood and DCYF-funded programming, as well as to create a system to regularly review the array and rates of human service programming in our state, which will ensure access to services for those who need them and adequate funding for organizations who provide them, like FSRI. These actions can save vital services for future generations of vulnerable Rhode Island children and families.

Thank you for making a brighter future for our state’s children!

FSRI staff plea for RI Legislature to pass H-7628

Jenna Pfueller — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 19:17:57 +0000

Right now there are 600 at-risk children under the age of 3 waiting for critical development services that Family Service of Rhode Island provides. Passing H-7628 will help.

Early Intervention and First Connections programs are a core component of the state’s commitment to ensuring that families with infants and toddlers with developmental delays and disabilities receive high-quality services as early as possible, so children can develop to their fullest potential.

But nonprofits that provide these mandated maternal and infant services face high staff turnover rates due to low wages– caused by a stagnant, 22-year-old state reimbursement rate— which is putting our most vulnerable children at risk of losing these services completely.

That’s why FSRI’s early childhood staff, including our CEO Margaret Holland McDuff, recently gave testimony in support of H-7628 to fund a stable system of care for Rhode Island children and families at the RI Statehouse.

Right now, there are only nine remaining EI service-providing agencies in Rhode Island, including FSRI. All have dealt with a workforce and financial crisis in recent years, which have now created a perfect storm of circumstances that is ultimately hurting at-risk children and families that need services most.

As a state, we have three choices:

Force nonprofits to operate in the red to continue offering these critical, life-saving services, which at some point will cause a total system collapse.
Close the early childhood programs altogether and be in violation of federal law.
Have legislators increase their reimbursement rates now and into the future through H-7628.

Please call or email your legislator TODAY and make sure they know you support H-7628. You can find out who your representative is here.

Let’s put people first– because the future of young Rhode Islanders hangs in the balance.